Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor products have many uses, for example, in cameras, smart phones, and medical imagers. All such devices require external light. This is particularly evident in medical endoscope products. The endoscope tip needs a light source because it is dark inside the body. Second, the endoscope tip needs to be miniaturized due to the medical necessity to access small cavities inside the body, such as tributaries of airway or blood vessels. As a result, the requirement for supplemental illumination may sometimes impose a limiting factor on further miniaturization of endoscopes, especially as the requirement complicates the design by requiring a power delivery system for the illumination source.
Conventional endoscope products have separate systems of illumination and detection. These are shown by way of example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,449,006 issued to Shipp, and related optical assembles may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 8,308,637 issued to Ishigami et al. FIG. 1 shows generally an endoscope system 100 of this nature in the prior art. An endoscope 102 is provided with an imaging tip 104 that is selectively attachable at locking collar 106. A CMOS imaging package 108 includes a lens and a photodectector array, such as an array of photodiodes (not shown). The imaging package 108 is circumscribed by a plurality of light emitting diodes (LEDs) 110, 112. Wiring harness 114 couples the imaging tip 104 with a host controller 116 by use of individual leads allocated to the LEDs 110, 112 and the CMOS imaging package 108 for the receipt of signals that are processed to develop viewable images.